1. Field of the Invention
Within the last two decades there has been a greatly accentuated emphasis on environmental concerns. As the identification and regulation of potentially environmentally harmful materials increases, so do the problems relating to disposition of such materials.
While the problem is not indigenous to any particular geographic area, it seems to be more prevalent in agricultural and industrialized areas.
Wherever the problem is found, it tends to break down into several well defined areas, among them, identification, transportation, neutralization, destruction or storage, and the area to which the present invention relates, storage and transportation.
2. Overview of the Related Art
While pockets of materials identifiable as of environmental concern burgeon, methods of storage and transportation have remained relatively primitive, given the high level of national and, indeed, international, concern. Techniques for on site remediation have received a lot of attention, for obvious reasons. However, where such techniques are inefficient or not cost effective, or unavailable, there must be means by which contaminated sites can be purged of the problem, and that typically means that the environmentally unacceptable materials, and any materials contaminated thereby, must be moved and stored.
Several storage sites have been established. However, most such sites are, for obvious reasons, remote, and often a great distance from the contaminated site. A generally accepted method of handling such materials is to pack the contaminates in drums, such as 55-gallon drums in common use for transportation of liquids, and to truck, or otherwise transport, the drums to a storage site. Such a method, and those akin to it, are not only inefficient, but require a considerable amount of undesirable human contact with potentially health threatening materials, a consequence which the present invention seeks, successfully, to ameliorate. Clearly, when the problem involves several thousand, or even hundreds of thousands, of cubic yards of material, such methods are not cost effective.
Walter recognized a problem and offered a solution documented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,967, which discloses a truck for hauling contaminants. The essence of that apparatus seems to be the use of water to hold down dust, although it does suggest the use of an air filter. The filter differs from that of the present invention in significant ways, however, not suggested by the inventor.
Campbell U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,293 is illustrative of a device that tries, not only to store and transport environmentally unacceptable materials, but actually process them, in situ, which is far afield from the present invention.
Several examples of the use of augers as unloading devices are located, among them, the following: Potter U.S. Pat. 2,585,169 having two augers which work separately and individually; German Patent 1,053,408 in which two augers work material towards the center unloading; German Patent 1,297,390 for a combine; and Russian Patent 1,402,505 which appears to be a single auger application. It is apparent, however, that these patents neither teach, nor suggest a dual auger system in which the augers work together, automatic unloading of toxic materials on which the present invention is focused.